Syrian Man Recovers Book Collection Hidden Behind Wall for 15 Years
A Syrian man in Homs has recovered hundreds of books he walled up in his home in 2011 to save them from destruction during the civil war.
An elderly Syrian man has recovered hundreds of books that he concealed behind a wall in his home in Homs for 15 years, keeping the collection intact through the country's civil war.
Mustafa Alwan, also known as Abu Bilal, is seen in a video circulating on social media breaking through the wall with a hammer and pulling away layers of cardboard and fibreboard to reach the books he had sealed inside.
Alwan said he hid the collection in 2011, when Syria descended into civil war, fearing that government forces would destroy it. With nowhere else to store the books, he built a wall around them inside the house after insulating the space with cardboard and MDF.
"We wanted to hide this treasure that we had somewhere," he said. "When we couldn't find anywhere else, we decided to put it inside the house and build a wall around it."
He opened the wall on 24 August 2026, after the fall of President Bashar Assad's government, and found the contents preserved.
"We sealed it up, and that's how we left it until God granted us victory. We opened it, and thank God, everything was intact," he said.
Not all of his original library survived. Alwan said forces loyal to the former government burned part of it, and he estimates that roughly a quarter to a third of the collection was destroyed. Expecting the remaining books could meet the same fate, he walled up as many as he could fit.
"There simply wasn't any more room before I sealed it up," he said, adding that he later moved the library from an upstairs space in his son's house to his own home.
The surviving books are mainly religious works and titles on the Arabic language. Alwan said many belong to his sons, who are students of religious studies.
"In general, it contains books on Islamic jurisprudence, Hadith, Sharia, and interpretations of the Holy Quran," he said.
Although the library is a private collection, Alwan said he is willing to make it available to anyone who needs it. "If anyone needs anything from it, we're more than happy to help. They're welcome," he said.